The 2016 Skills Challenge will get a big twist to it as the All-Star Weekend events go outside of United State soil for the first time and it will be headed north of the border to Toronto.
While the full list of 2016 Slam Dunk participants was leaked a day early, everyone still wasn’t sure what would happen with the other competitions like the Skills Challenge and Three-Point Contest but we actually do have the final field for the Skills Challenge.
It was rumored for a week that the Skills Challenge would feature some big men including Draymond Green and DeMarcus Cousins and now it appears that those rumors have come out to be true.
Following from Lang Whitaker of NBA.com.
The evening will open with the Taco Bell Skills Challenge, which will be radically different this season. Last year, the event was populated entirely by point guards, with Houston’s Patrick Beverley winning over Brandon Knight. This season, Beverley is slated to return and compete against several guards, such as Portland’s CJ McCollum, Boston’s Isaiah Thomas and Jordan Clarkson from the Lakers.
But the twist here is that they will be in a field that includes several big men, including Sacramento’s DeMarcus Cousins and rookie Karl-Anthony Towns. It will also be interesting to see what kind of performance we get from New Orleans’ multi-talented center Anthony Davis, who played guard throughout high school before a growth spurt moved him to the post. And the leading contender among the big men participating must be Golden State’s Draymond Green, who currently leads the League in triple-doubles with 10.
Hopefully, the field will be split up between bigs and smalls. I would hate to see DeMarcus Cousins go up against Isaiah Thomas to start the contest because IsaIah is faster and he would most likely smoke the big man down the court. Put bigs against bigs and smalls against smalls until the end.
The champion big man vs the champion small guy should be how the champion should be determined.
